Proper Way to Escape Quotes in HTML string that includes PHP variables

I'm writing a string of HTML that needs to take in some of my PHP variables. However, I can't seem to escape the double quotes correctly.

Attempt 1:

$html .= '<span class="badge"><a href="#" style="color:orange"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-up" aria-hidden="true" onclick="sendToProduction(\''.$configType.'\')"></span></a></span>';

Result:

<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-up" aria-hidden="true" onclick="sendToProduction(\' project\')"=""></span>

Attempt 2:

$html .= '<span class="badge"><a href="#" style="color:orange"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-up" aria-hidden="true" onclick="sendToProduction('.'$configType'.')"></span></a></span>';

Result:

<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-up" aria-hidden="true" onclick="sendToProduction(project)"></span>

Close, but should be 'project'.

Desired Result:

<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-up" aria-hidden="true" onclick="sendToProduction('project')"></span>